Reaching An All Time Low

All Time Low released its debut disc, The Three Words To Remember In Dealing With The End EP, in 2004.  Since then, the pop punk band from Towson, Md., has released six studio albums and one live LP, including its latest effort, 2015’s Future Hearts.

Formed during the post-Napster age while its members were still in high school, All Time Low earned its success through the tried and true method of putting in lots of time on the road – a game plan that continues to this day.

All Time Low is touring with Sleeping With Sirens and come February the band goes to the United Kingdom with special guest Good Charlotte.  What makes for a great All Time Low touring package?

What makes it really fun, good and special is a lot of the time we tour with our friends. We’re touring with our peers and people who we’ve had previous [and] longstanding relationships with.  I think that comes across. … We sort of look for bands that we know put on a great live show and are going to absolutely kill it every night. But I think the other side of that is, behind the scenes, everyone is having a great time.  Everyone is in good spirits.  There isn’t a lot of drama on an All Time Low tour. At least, we try to minimize it.  The biggest thing for us is just taking out bands we love and we know are going to put on great shows.  Bands that carry themselves and handle themselves the right way so that everything is smooth and easy.

Does that go back to your experiences with Warped Tour in that the band was surrounded by like-minded people?

There was so much camaraderie on the Warped Tour.  It was a great way to learn how to tour.  That tour handles itself in a unique way.  There’s no priorities, no special treatment for bigger bands, smaller bands or anything like that. You’re in it, you’re there, you gotta work hard and put your head down and get things done.  I think we definitely learned a lot from those years.

How important was Warped Tour to All Time Low’s early success?

It was a very big deal for us. It really helped us come into our own and it taught us a lot about the touring world.  It also allowed us to get in front of a lot of people who had never heard of us before.  That was a really big thing for us.  There’s a big aspect of self-marketing and self-promotion on Warped Tour and if you get out there and do the legwork you can pull a lot of people to come and watch you.  These were years when people weren’t coming out automatically to see our show.  We had to convince people to come watch us.

What surprised you the most about touring during those early years?

How much down time there is.  One of the things you don’t realize from the outside looking in is [touring] isn’t as glamorous as a lot of people may think.  It’s a lot of hurry up and wait.  There’s a lot of crappy dressing rooms, gross truck stops and things like that. … There’s definitely two sides to this world. There are the moments that you’re on stage and killing it and it’s everything you’ve dreamed about. Then there’s 12-hour flights to Tokyo and things like that, which definitely take a toll.  You’ve got to balance it all and take it all in stride.

What would surprise a visitor riding on the All Time Low tour bus for the very first time?

I think people are often surprised about how clean our bus is.  They come on and sort of go, “Wow. You guys run a tight ship here.”  I think people expect us to be kind of messy but our bus is very clean, always smells good, always has a candle burning.  We try to keep it feeling homey.  I think one of the big things is that is literally your home for the next few months. I’ve been on buses of other bands that are just disgusting. I couldn’t live like that.  It would be demoralizing.

What differences do you hear on the new album Future Hearts, compared to past releases?

I think a big part of what has changed in All Time Low in recent years is we are a lot more self-aware.  We sort of know what we’re doing, we know what we want to sound like and we know what we want our approach to be when we start writing a record, and things like that.  I think in years past our records had great songs on them and we’ve been fortunate to have success. But at the same time … we were still finding our way while making those records.  We were learning who we were, what we wanted to do and what we wanted to sound like.  I think after Don’t Panic, and now with Future Hearts, there is a much greater sense of knowing exactly what we wanted to accomplish.  With Future Hearts you get a lot of dynamic.  There’s sort of a loose concept throughout the whole thing.

If you could take Future Hearts and somehow send it back to the Alex making his first album with All Time Low, what would he think of the new album?

I think the young me would definitely be a fan.  It’s the kind of music I aspired to write at that time.  I probably would have some kind of snide comment about it being too commercial or too polished … not being punk rock enough. But at the same time I think, secretly, I would be a fan.

Rock history is filled with stories about bands recording first albums where the producers want to swap out one of the members for a session player.  Did All Time Low ever face that kind of pressure?

No. Fortunately we’ve been lucky with that.  Nobody has ever pressured us.  One of the good things is we had very patient producers back in the day.  While we may not have been as studio savvy as a [session] performer might have been, we had producers who pushed us and were willing to put in the time to make us better players.  It’s very fortunate we had producers who were willing to work with us in that way rather than just saying, “Screw it.  I’m hiring someone to do this quickly.”  It made us better musicians, better players.  That’s a big deal growing up.

All Time Low formed when you and your bandmates were in high school.  Do you stay in contact with any other old high school friends?

I do.  I definitely have a good handful of friends. … Baltimore has a small feel to it … a small-town vibe.  You stick with the people you’re close with.  When I’m home, I go out to a bar or something and I run into a lot of people from high school where I go, “OK.  I’m caught up now.”

It’s really cool seeing people years later.  A lot of them don’t even know what we’ve been doing.  They see little bits and pieces here and there but, overall, they have no idea that we haven’t been home for 300 days or whatever.  It’s kind of fun to catch up and explain the nitty gritty of how it all goes down.

While touring, do you and your bandmates follow any regimens to stay in shape?

We try to stay in good physical shape.  A lot of the guys work out.  We play a lot of sports when we have time – days off and before shows.  We play football, soccer and whatever.  It keeps you physically feeling good and it’s also [good] for mental health.  We do what we can.  We’re playing, like, a two-hour show.  That in itself is a workout. … We put on a pretty active live show.  We’re running around a lot, jumping around. You break a sweat.

Is all that movement spontaneous or are some of those moves planned out?

We don’t do a whole lot of coordinating.  It’s always been pretty spontaneous for us.  The more production you add in, sometimes you do have to rehearse a little bit as far as making sure you’re not standing over pyro when it goes off, or something like that.  You choreograph a little bit around that.  For the most part we’re just flying by the seat of our pants.

What kind of mix do you hear while on stage?

There’s a little bit of emphasis of hearing my vocal and my guitar.  We play to a click [track] to keep it all tight and cohesive. For the most part I have a fairly rounded out mix of everything.

What were you hearing during the early years?

Oh, God.  Whatever we could [hear].  We’re fortunate enough now to play with in ear monitors and have a great monitor engineer.  It’s a luxury.  Back then it was sort of like turn everything up as loud as it would go and hope the monitors don’t feed back.

Do you see a lot of returning fans when you look out into the audience?

Yeah. It’s been pretty incredible. We have this amazing mix of people who have grown with us and have come to shows for years.  We’re also seeing a new wave of fans come in, which is also pretty cool. After 11-12 years of being a band it doesn’t always happen where you’re gaining new fans.  It’s pretty incredible to see, even on these headline shows that we’ve been doing now … half of the crowd has seen us before, half hasn’t.

What’s more satisfying for you: Being in the moment when you and the band is creating something special, or walking off the stage at the end of the show knowing you nailed it?

Being in the moment.  When we have a great show, we always come off and want to go back out there.  While it’s great to come off and reflect and know you had a good show, nothing beats being in it. It’s the best feeling.

Has a stage manager or promoter every yanked the band off stage for playing too long?

We’ve been threatened.  I don’t think we’ve ever had the plug pulled … or the power turned off. … We’re not assholes.  We try to be respectful.  If people need to get out of there and they need to shut the venue down, we try our best to get out of there.  We’re not going to screw up our show for it.  That’s always the balance.  If we have one last song to play, we’re going to play it.

How supportive were your parents during All Time Low’s early years?

Our parents were amazing.  I think they had their doubts and reservations at first.  We weren’t awesome back then. (laughs) I think it’s one of those things … labels and managers were showing interest … and we had to convince everyone it was a worthwhile investment of our time.  It was a risk.  The window only opens for a short amount of time. I think one thing that was great about our families is that they understood that as well.  They sort of got that ,“if not now, then when?”  That opportunity may never come up again.  They let us try it out.  Back then it was like, “OK.  You can try this for a year and we’ll see how it’s going.”  Fortunately for us it continued to grow and build and we never had to stop doing it.

When we were about 16 and had our learner’s permits, I remember driving up and down the East Coast with a family member in tow just so we could play a showcase in New York or something.  They were incredible.

How involved are you with the business of All Time Low?

Very.  We’ve always been pretty hands-on with handling the business side of things or at least knowing what’s going on and controlling arrangements we get into.

Does everyone in the band vote on everything?

Yep.  We’ve always treated everything as an equal split four ways.  It’s very dependent on what everybody is feeling, what everybody is thinking. Fortunately, we’re all pretty collaborative and cohesive in the way we think and work.  It’s very rare that we get into a stalemate.  It’s pretty easy to hash things out.

And that’s everything from business contracts to artwork for the next album cover?

If you’re talking about album art and things like that, that’s a bit more of an argument, always. (laughs)  Then everybody has their opinion.  But it always gets worked out.  We’re very lucky that the four of us can put our heads together and figure things out fairly quickly and without too much incendiary conversation.

When you bring a song to the band, does the finished recording sound like what you imagined it would?

It depends.  Sometimes I’ll bring a song to the table, the guys will like it … and we’ll cut it. Obviously there are changes here and there.  I’m not a drummer the way Rian [Dawson] is a drummer and I’m not a bass player the way Zack [Merrick] is a bass player.  There are plenty of times when the song won’t change that much but the fills are different or the bass line is a little bit different.  Ultimately, the song doesn’t change shape very much.

Then there are songs where I’ll bring a demo in … and through the course of recording it we realize that something isn’t working.  Things happen when songs grow up.  In those cases sometimes it’s back to the drawing board.  The nice thing about this is the three other guys in the band are very complimentary of one another. … Sometimes it takes putting us in a live room and letting us hash it out and suddenly it’s like, “OK.  That wasn’t the chorus.  This is the chorus” and the song takes on a new shape.

What came first for you, singing or playing guitar?

Singing.  I was able to sort of carry a tune my whole life.  I think that comes with having an ear for music.  I was singing for a long time in choirs and in choruses, things like that. I think it was in middle school when I wanted to pick up a guitar and start playing.  I got into it for a little while but got bored with the lessons so I dropped if for a year, two years, [before] getting back into it.  My second guitar teacher kept me interested because rather than make me play scales over and over, he actually taught me songs. Then I felt I was learning something.  Once I could play Metallica and things like that, I was like, “This is awesome. Now I get it.  This is why I wanted to learn to play guitar.” I was probably getting into my teenage years by then.

What goes through your head whenever a new band cites All Times Low as an inspiration?

That’s always really cool.  We’ve grown up getting to know our influences and having a lot of those full-circle moments where we’ve been able to tour with the Foo Fighters or with Green Day, and have had that conversation.  It’s like, “You guys are the reason we’re a band.”  So it’s extremely cool for us when these new bands are saying the same thing. I don’t think any of us every imagined that we would ever be that to anyone.  We were always the band that was looking up to other bands.

Along the same lines, what’s your reaction when you catch, say, a bar band playing an All Time Low song?

It’s always really funny and quite surreal and strange.  There’s a band from the U.K., kind of a pop-rock band called The Vamps.  They’re super nice kids.  I think they’re in their teens.  They’re doing quite well and have gotten pretty big to the point that they’re selling out Wembley Arena.  They’re a teen-sensation sort of band.

We went over to the U.K. to tour and we were doing a record signing in an FYE or something like that.  We saw this Vamps live CD and they did a cover of “Dear Maria, Count Me In.” That is the funniest thing, ever.  We all got a kick out of that.

What’s the strangest place you’ve ever heard your music played?

I think the things that become really funny are the places you’d never expect to hear music.  Whenever we go to Japan and [visit] all the karaoke restaurants and bars, we always check [to see] if our songs are on there.  Sure enough, we’ve gotten lucky and have had some success finding our own songs.

Who’s the funniest guy in the band?

Jack’s [Barakat] insane.  Our guitar player is a clown.  I would definitely say he’s pretty entertaining.

And the most serious?

I would say Zack, our bass player.  Not in a negative way.  He’s kind of quiet and to himself a lot.  He’s very reflective and thinks before he speaks.  A lot of time he gets the rep of being the quiet, shy one.  But it’s really because he’s always feeling out a situation before he speaks up.

What’s the next big goal for All Time Low?

It’s hard to say because we always take it in strides.  I think the big thing now, for us, would be to move up to the next level of rooms.  We’re starting to play sheds and arenas in the U.S.  We have yet to do a fully sold-out tour in that format.  I think the next step is to continue to grow to the point where we can sell those babies out and consider ourselves an arena rock band, which is what we’ve always wanted to be.

Upcoming dates for All Time Low:

Nov. 20 – Wallingford, Conn., Toyota Oakdale Theatre
Nov. 21 – Philadelphia, Pa., The Liacouras Center
Nov. 22 – Sayreville, N.J., Starland Ballroom
Nov. 24 – New York, N.Y., Theater At Madison Square Garden
Dec. 19 – Milwaukee, Wis., Eagles Ballroom
Feb. 10 – Cardiff, Wales, Motorpoint Arena Cardiff
Feb. 11 – London, England, The O2 – London
Feb. 12 – Manchester, England, Manchester Arena
Feb. 13 – Birmingham, England, Barclaycard Arena
Feb. 15 – Glasgow, Scotland, The SSE Hydro
Feb. 16 – Dublin, Ireland, 3Arena

Sleeping With Sirens appears Nov. 20-21, & 24.  American Authors appears Dec. 19.  Good Charlotte appears Feb. 10-16.

For more information about All Time Low please visit the band’s website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, YouTube channel, Instagram page and fanclub.